Malaysia Ministry

Hey ya’ll

So I’d love to paint a picture of what our ministry looked like in Malaysia, and share a few stories 🙂

Teaching School

     Essentially the first week we showed up in Malaysia we met a group of kids who we learned were apart of our host church’s school. These kids were refugees. Specifically Rohingya Muslims who had fled from the oppression currently happening in Burma (Myanmar). They were ages anywhere from 5-16 years old and all learning in only 2 different levels, both math and English curriculum. So when we came in PT (pastor Thomas) and Jessica (the main teacher) told us we were to be paired up with the kids one on one, each of us would have our own student to mentor for the next 40 days (only 15 school days). 
     So we met the kids!

They loved to play rock paper scissors

    And so after meeting all of them, playing a rock paper scissors tournament, Simon says, dancing, and all the classic things you love to do in elementary school, the teacher splits into groups: teachers and students. And she speaks in Malay to the students and tells them to think about who they would want their teacher to be.  Finally it comes to my turn in the line, and a 16 year old boy walks up to me and says

“hello teacher Carter”

I smiled. 
Soon after we said our goodbyes and the kids all piled into the old white van that they knew as their school bus. Some of the boys practically hanging out the window as they waved and drove away. 
Don’t know how this thing didn’t fall apart

     So we began school. Or really just our part in school, these kids had been learning since January but we got to be apart of it for just a little over a month!
     School ran 3 days a week for 3 and and half hours a day, from around 8:30 – 12, Monday -Wednesday. I curated a simple curriculum for my student where we spent most of our time reading, free writing sentences, with the occasional math (usually I’d hand that off to teacher Jackson). At first we had some trouble, I can imagine if a kid speaking a different language tried to teach me, I’d also be giving some blank faces. But we learned, and honestly someday I learned more than him. 


teachers with their students   

     The students really loved us, some would FaceTime their teachers, play video games with us (free fire was a hit among the boys), and on a couple occasions they invited us to come to their village. 
     On one such occasion, my first time in the village, we got in our favorite white van and took a drive. Eventually we pulled over on the side of the road at a clearing in the trees. And wow this was like platform 9 3/4, we walked through the trees and it’s like a whole different world hiding in there. The village is just one dirt street, stretching maybe 300m end to end, we walk in and the kids are running out to meet us. 
    We attempt to greet the parents sitting on porches, making our presence not too intrusive but It’s not long before a little boy comes and grabs my hand dragging me away to his home.
     Every aspect of the village was full of hospitality, When you enter one of the homes you would take your shoes off and there would  be bowls of fresh fruit sitting there for you to eat. And I’m talking like fresh from their backyards, mangos, bananas, apples and watermelon.fruit and drinks

    We ate and talked for quite a bit, sitting on the floor, or kicking a soccer ball around outside.  Then, nonchalant one of the dads comes and asks the big guy on my team Caleb what chicken he likes. There are quite a few chickens walking around outside (these things were everywhere) so Caleb points at one and says “that one’s pretty cute”. Then one of the little boys picks it up, says “Ok, we eat” and runs with it around the back of the house. 


we eat

   WOW, The food they served us was delicious, Sidap, Riquísimo, טעים, อร่อย. Pick your language it was good. 


eating around the dinner table

     We eventually said goodnight and went home. The Lord opened up my eyes so much during that night at the village. I just kept being amazed at how much these people wanted to give us despite having so little. I’m so used to holding onto what I think is mine, but here this village culture just kept sharing, not caring about if it came back around. 

The Lost Sheep
    School kept going on, I learned more and more about the Rohingya culture. And day by day I understood more and more about our kids, while amazingly God was opening my heart to love them so deeply. 
     One day for a reading lesson I knew my student was learned enough to read something more challenging, so I opened up my Bible to Luke 15: the Parable of the Lost Sheep. He began to read 

“and Jesus said, “if a man has one hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the field and go and search for the one until he finds it?”

   Not every word was perfect, but we stumbled our way through the first time. Eventually I would teach him hand motions and we would learn the words he didn’t understand. But he kept reading, almost pressing every word as he spoke,

”and when he finds it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors saying ‘rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep!’” 

    I acted out what It would be like to carry a sheep on my shoulders, and made sure to put a big smile on my face for the word joyfully. 

”In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns back to God, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who haven’t strayed away”

  I can’t forget what it was like to hear him read out those words. He didn’t know he was reading them about himself. I gotta admit that tears welled up for a moment, I pictured Jesus there as the shepherd that was just so eagerly waiting to pick up his lost sheep and take him home. God reminded me of all of the lost sheep in my life, my friends and family who have strayed away from the flock of Gods love and care. Honestly he reminded me of myself, and what it was like to be found by Jesus. But more than all of that he reminded me of his character, as a shepherd that continues to search and chase after his lost sheep. 

    Eventually our last day of school came.
My squad cried a lot of tears when we said goodbye to our kids. I was sad to say goodbye as well, but at the same time overwhelmed with gratitude that I could be apart of his life. Being with these refugee kids I had a realization that God just had such better plans and blessings for my life than my own plannings could ever bring me. God really does just want to bless his children with good gifts!

me and my student 

Family

    During my time in Malaysia God showed me his abundance. And I’m so grateful for all the communities he put us in that felt like real families. Crazy as it sounds, God wants to adopt the whole world. He wants to adopt every one of us into his family, he wants to bring all of us into his flock. And there is no place of belonging in the whole world that is more beautiful than God’s family. In his family there is always more than enough to go around. More than enough joy, more than enough freedom, more than enough of the father’s life that he so freely wants to give us. 
Let him Give it to You!!
    Thank you friends so much for choosing to stop and read through my blog! After Malaysia we are headed to Thailand where we will split up into 4 different teams in different ministries. I can’t wait to tell about it!

– Carter